STRANGE GUESTS.
She was very playful and charming that night. He looked into her eyes as
they flashed down upon him, and forgot the jewels. They walked together
into the vast drawing-rooms, and waited for the guests, whose footsteps
could be heard plainly on the marble floor of the entrance hall. The
steps were heavy, and seemed out of place in that dwelling. The master
of all that splendor was strangely impressed by the sound of those
footsteps. His breath came slowly and his restless eyes sought the door
with a species of vague dread in their glance.
His wife stood careless and smiling, always graceful and ready to enjoy
the surprise of her first guests. They came forward slowly, the heavy
footsteps smothered in the carpets, and looking around in vague wonder,
as if frightened at finding themselves in the midst of such splendor.
"Who can they be, dressed in that fashion?" muttered the lady. "I do not
know them!"
Nelson watched the two men anxiously as they approached. They were
strangers, and certainly could not be invited guests. The men saw him,
and advanced up the room.
"Is your name Nelson?" inquired the foremost, speaking almost in a
whisper, for he was awed by the splendor around him.
"Yes," answered Nelson; "that is my name."
"Nelson Thrasher?"
The woman by his side gave a little scream as the words fell on her ear,
but controlled herself instantly, though the smile left her lips, and
the gorgeous fan trembled in her grasp.
"Yes," said a third person, coming up the room with a heavy, rolling
gate, such as seafaring men attain in long voyages. "It is Nelson
Thrasher. Arrest him here and now."
Every vestige of color left Thrasher's face--he stood trembling before
the two men like a coward. But the woman by his side drew her
magnificent figure to its proudest height, and turned scornfully upon
them.
"You are mistaken; his name is not Thrasher. This gentleman is my
husband!"
The seafaring man looked at her steadily; there was nothing in her words
or appearance to excite compassion, so he spoke out bluntly.
"No, marm, _you_ are mistaken. His name is Thrasher, and he is not your
husband, having been married to another woman long before you left the
pine woods."
The color fled from her proud face, till the jewels, flashing their
light across it, gave her features the appearance of marble. She turned
upon Thrasher with deadly hate in her eyes.
"Is this thing true?" The words hissed through her white lips.
He did not answer, but stood before her dumb and sullen.
"Is this thing true?" she repeated, turning to the sailor.
"True as judgment, marm."
"And the woman, her name, I say!"
"His wife is my own sister, Katharine Allen."
"His wife!" she cried, fiercely turning upon Thrasher again. "Man, have
you nothing to say?"
Thrasher lifted his eyes, heavy and sad as death. "I loved you, Ellen."
"Loved me!"
The bitter scorn in her voice made him shrink like a hound when it feels
the lash.
"It is the truth. God only knows how I loved you, how I do love you."
Her face fairly contracted with the loathing that had slept in her bosom
so long.
"And God only knows how I hate you--how I hated you then, and shall
forever and ever."
"But you married me."
"No, I married these, and these, and these!"
She dashed one hand against the jewels on her bosom, hair, and arms,
then pointed to the supper room, with its flowers, and the long vista of
saloons opening into each other.
Thrasher shrunk into himself, standing before her white and cold. She
had no mercy on his wretchedness; no control over her own rage.
"Take him away," she said, addressing the men. "If you have a warrant,
use it quickly. Drag him from my sight, anywhere, so that he is taken
far enough, and buried deep enough."
"Ellen! Ellen!"
The cry of his anguish would have touched a stone with mercy, but she
only drew a sob, and went on, bitter as death, and sharp as steel. He
knew that venomous truth was spiking up through her rage, and while she
was treading him to the earth, the viper in his nature crested itself
against her.
"You married me for these," he said, pointing to her bosom, which heaved
with rage under its flaming ornaments. "I may be guilty, but not more
guilty than you are, Ellen."
"Take him away--take him away," she cried, "or I shall die."
"One moment," exclaimed Thrasher, desperately; "Ellen speak to me alone.
It may be my last request."
Had she been alone, I think the woman would have refused him--but with
all those eyes turned upon her, she could only step aside to one of
those little boudoirs that his wealth had fitted up for her.
"Well?" she said, haughtily turning upon him as he stood before her,
pale and shrinking.
"Ellen--Ellen, do not be so cruel to me; if I have sinned, it was from
the love that made me desperate. If I have wronged you, think what I
gave up for your sake--how much I risked--how much I have endured."
"Well?" she repeated, growing hard and stern with each word, "what
more?"
"Oh, Ellen," he pleaded, "unsay those cutting words, they pierce me to
the heart--never loved me--hate--oh, do not strike me so hard!"
"Hate!" sneered the woman. "No, no, that is not the word, it does not
express enough; I want a stronger language, something that will combine
loathing, detestation, and scorn, all in one word, that I may fling it
at you, and go!"
"Ellen, Ellen!"
She took no heed of this agonized cry, but went on, her cheeks blanched,
and her eyes aflame with passion. "The only drop of comfort I have," she
raved, "is, that I can for once speak out, and throw off the load of
hate that has fevered every drop of blood in my veins since the day I
married you."
He did not attempt to answer her now. The scathing words she had uttered
seemed to freeze the life from his whole system. He stood looking upon
her with wild, dreary eyes, his whole face so coldly white that she
paused, drawing a sharp breath, even in the headlong passion that
possessed her.
At last he spoke, but the hollow sound of his voice made her shiver.
"You hate me--and I, who loved you better than truth, better than honor,
better than my own soul--hate you, Ellen Mason!"
She was petrified. The fearful violence of her passion had borne her too
far--fallen as he was, the man possessed power. There was his secret;
with all her patient craft she had failed to win that, and now it would
be buried with him in the prison to which he must inevitably go. She
looked keenly in his face; it was hard as granite, and his eyes seemed
scarcely human from the fire that smouldered in them, giving dusky force
to the circles underneath. She knew that at last her power had been
wholly swept away. She saw this with a pang. The whole scene had come
upon her so suddenly, that she could not yet realize her true
position--that he was not, and never had been her husband; that before
the world she was a disgraced woman. She remembered, with a thrill of
terror, how the measures taken only to protect her pride, and save her
from the intrusions of Thrasher's family, would now tell against her.
The name partially suppressed, the false history of her position, all
would go to prove complicity with the criminal whom she had just
exasperated into a bitter enemy.
Stung with this conviction, she stood before Thrasher in the full
humiliation of a haughty spirit overthrown.
A stern sneer crept to his lips as he looked upon her. He turned and
moved toward the door.
"Where are you going?" she questioned, in a hoarse whisper.
"I am going to proclaim myself a criminal, and you Captain Mason's
widow!" he said.
"To whom?"
"To your guests as they come in!"
"You will not be so cruel!"
He laughed like a fiend.
"Cruel!"
"So base, then!"
"Base! I bought you with money; sold myself for love--both were
cheated!"
He passed out of the room, smiling upon her as he went. She was a
sharp-willed woman, crafty and prompt. The danger was imminent, but she
had the intellect to meet it. Quick as lightning her plan was matured.
She followed him out, and touching one of the officers on the arm,
whispered:
"A hundred dollars in gold if you get that man clear of the house in ten
minutes."
"Can't be done, marm. Mr. Rice has gone for more help. No moving a peg
till he comes back."
"But you can lock him up; put a guard over him; do something to save us
from this disgrace! If one hundred is not enough you shall have five!"
"But where shall we put him--every room in the house seems turned into a
garden?"
"In the south wing, along that hall, you will find a room. It has but
one door. Iron shutters are concealed under the ornamental work. Secure
them, and it is impossible for him to escape. Hark! that is a carriage!
A thousand dollars if you get him off before it reaches the entrance!"
She was pale as death, and her whispers sounded like the hiss of a
reptile.
The two men consulted together a moment, and directly one of them
touched Thrasher on the arm.
"Come, go with us into another room."
"What room?"
"That in the south wing, with iron shutters and only one door. It will
do."
"No," he said, doggedly; "my house isn't a prison. You have a warrant,
execute it. I will pass those people as they come in."
The men began to expostulate. Ellen Mason trembled with terror, for the
carriage was already setting down its burden at her door.
One of the men came to her for counsel.
"Shall we take him away by force, marm?"
"Yes, if it must be--quick."
To her surprise, Thrasher came forward. The expression of his face had
changed--there was a gleam of malicious triumph in it.
"Madame," he said, "I consent to remain your guest a little longer."
Then, turning to the men, he said: "How many hours shall I be detained
in this room with one door and iron shutters?"
"All night," replied the man.
"All night?" There was something more than a question in his voice.
"Yes, yes; we shan't run the risk of taking you out in a crowd--depend
on it. Too smart a chap for any risks of that sort."
"No chance of getting off before morning?" he questioned again, very
earnestly.
"Not the ghost of one--even if Rice himself comes back. We have all the
responsibility."
"Well, I am ready. Farewell, madame."
Ellen Mason followed him, with affrighted looks. Her guests were coming
up the entrance hall in groups. Thrasher stood immovable, smiling
maliciously upon her. This exasperated the two officers, and they seized
him each by an arm. He shook them off at once, and moved close to the
lady.
"Ellen Mason, if I leave you one more night of triumph, it is because
the blow that I strike shall be for life, not for an hour."
She drew back, and stood, with a forced smile in her eyes, looking
toward the advancing guests. He, too, smiled, and walked on, bowing low
as he passed the groups of revellers that now half filled the entrance
hall. The two officers rushed eagerly after him, and seized him by the
arms in the midst of his guests. Again he shook them off, and, turning
toward the south wing, disappeared.
With a wild glitter in her eyes, the mistress of the mansion watched him
till he was lost in the incoming crowd. Then drawing a heavy breath, she
turned to receive the brilliant throng that surged into her rooms.